Following the Zoo Project launch and call for entries back in November last year, the first six successful applicants were showcased to mark the start of the Zoo Project’s ongoing incubation of new publishers, allowing them to benefit from more than £1 million of business resources, office space and hands-on mentoring from the TradeDoubler team and the panel of ‘dragon’ judges.

Dan Cohen, Network Director at TradeDoubler North-West, announced the launch with a short speech, detailing how impressed both the network and ‘dragons’ had been with the level of entries and ideas being submitted.

The opportunity for these new incubated publishers was complemented by the latest global advertising forecast by Strategy Analytics suggesting that online advertising in the UK over the next 12 months was going to increase by 10.6% to £7.6bn, with the UK taking a large chunk of this spend.

Opportunities for Publishers

Essentially the Zoo Project has been lauded by the wider community as an innovative way to increase the churn of publishers coming into the space and maximising their opportunities when working within it, something that Mary Keane-Dawson, one of this year’s ‘dragons’, was keen to comment on:

“It’s my view that all forms of marketing will eventually move towards Performance Marketing. The Zoo Project is all about nurturing, developing, guiding and delivering the innovative businesses who will capitalise on these enormous opportunities.

“If affiliate marketing over the next few years is going to maximise these opportunities and massive growth potential, with the predicted growth in overall online advertising at 10% plus (IAB numbers) then we need to innovate, re-invent and really raise the bar. I certainly believe, that the winners of the Zoo Project this year have done exactly that. They’re at a level whereby they can attract more advertising and sponsorship from display, tenancies, mobile and brand building budgets.

“With a focus on being content driven, putting the user experience at the heart of their business models is clever, because this is where there’s a growing value of impressions and digital brand engagement. Affiliate and performance marketing is now primed to make massive inroads into this space.”

The Zoo Project's First Residents

The first six successful applicants-turned-residents of the Zoo Project were able to showcase their new ideas via their own branded table completed with iPad’s so that guests to the launch party could find out more and discuss these new ventures.

We’ll be profiling each successful applicant in more detail over the coming weeks, but initial congratulations to: